Who voted in Greece?
It's true we idealize Greece, and even Rome, an awful lot, but there are good reasons. They came up with a lot of things before us, but they didn't exactly perfect it. And of course, neither have we.
In Greece, free men voted, and also participated in juries of their peers in legal matters. Wonderful ideas in and of themselves. But the idealized idea of ancient Greek society may be a little different than the actuality as well. For one thing, the populations weren't in the millions, much less tens or hundreds of millions. They all pretty much thought the same way - most of the immigrants were slaves or certainly not citizens, like store owners and such. Most of the free men citizens were warriors. They had a direct stake in everything they did. They were as learned of their world as they needed to be help make decisions.
Rome formed a Republic as a form of democratic representation, but even then we are really only talking about representation of the "familied" people (not even necessarily wealthy, although wealthy non-familied people could certainly buy influence), with marginal representation of the lower classes barely included,at least at the upper levels of politics. The lower classes were supposedly satisfied by games and giving away food and gold and such.
The idea that an electorate cannot be trusted to be educated enough to choose its own leaders in a reasonably wise manner is scary to me. That tells me that people who are reasonably intelligent are willing to give up their freedoms to ignorance - even a Republic is not proof against such ignorance. A Republic is only meant to be a buffer against wild swings, not against a slowly building ignorance that threatens the stability of the Republic.
That doesn't mean that each and every person who votes has to be a completely well-informed person. But a good majority of voters sure as hell should be well-informed. And I'm not talking about informed on political sciences, but rather they understand what's going on in their world, not at a superficial level, but at a deeper level. Political conscience should be the concern of the majority, not a small group of people.
The whole idea of not having tests or other conditions for the right to vote has obvious problems within a democratic republic. But I can certainly understand the sentiment even though I can't quite agree with it.
I do believe there should be some fair manner to limit the voting franchise, but I don't know what that would be. Robert Heinlein (another of my favorite science fiction writers) proposed that only people who have given service to their country in some fashion should be eligible to vote. That included military and civilian service of some sort. I've heard other people propose similar things with an addition - only taxpayers should have the right to vote.
The bigger a country, the more diverse, the more differently people in that country see things, the less cohesive and the more likely a dictatorship of the masses is likely to be the case. Personally, I think less government and smaller autonomous governmental entities is at least part of the answer. I still think that a democratic republic is the best form of government so far encountered and is much more easily achievable with smaller populations who are fairly agreeable about what they want.
It's true we idealize Greece, and even Rome, an awful lot, but there are good reasons. They came up with a lot of things before us, but they didn't exactly perfect it. And of course, neither have we.
In Greece, free men voted, and also participated in juries of their peers in legal matters. Wonderful ideas in and of themselves. But the idealized idea of ancient Greek society may be a little different than the actuality as well. For one thing, the populations weren't in the millions, much less tens or hundreds of millions. They all pretty much thought the same way - most of the immigrants were slaves or certainly not citizens, like store owners and such. Most of the free men citizens were warriors. They had a direct stake in everything they did. They were as learned of their world as they needed to be help make decisions.
Rome formed a Republic as a form of democratic representation, but even then we are really only talking about representation of the "familied" people (not even necessarily wealthy, although wealthy non-familied people could certainly buy influence), with marginal representation of the lower classes barely included,at least at the upper levels of politics. The lower classes were supposedly satisfied by games and giving away food and gold and such.
The idea that an electorate cannot be trusted to be educated enough to choose its own leaders in a reasonably wise manner is scary to me. That tells me that people who are reasonably intelligent are willing to give up their freedoms to ignorance - even a Republic is not proof against such ignorance. A Republic is only meant to be a buffer against wild swings, not against a slowly building ignorance that threatens the stability of the Republic.
That doesn't mean that each and every person who votes has to be a completely well-informed person. But a good majority of voters sure as hell should be well-informed. And I'm not talking about informed on political sciences, but rather they understand what's going on in their world, not at a superficial level, but at a deeper level. Political conscience should be the concern of the majority, not a small group of people.
The whole idea of not having tests or other conditions for the right to vote has obvious problems within a democratic republic. But I can certainly understand the sentiment even though I can't quite agree with it.
I do believe there should be some fair manner to limit the voting franchise, but I don't know what that would be. Robert Heinlein (another of my favorite science fiction writers) proposed that only people who have given service to their country in some fashion should be eligible to vote. That included military and civilian service of some sort. I've heard other people propose similar things with an addition - only taxpayers should have the right to vote.
The bigger a country, the more diverse, the more differently people in that country see things, the less cohesive and the more likely a dictatorship of the masses is likely to be the case. Personally, I think less government and smaller autonomous governmental entities is at least part of the answer. I still think that a democratic republic is the best form of government so far encountered and is much more easily achievable with smaller populations who are fairly agreeable about what they want.
